he class character of China and its role in global politics is one of the crucial issues in the current period. Recently, there has been an exchange on this issue between Esteban Mercatante and Michael Pröbsting.
Esteban Mercatante is an economist and a member of the Editorial Board of “Ideas de Izquierda”. This is the theoretical publication of the Socialist Workers Party (PTS) in Argentina – the leading force within the Trotskyist alliance FITu which got 1,5 million votes and 4 deputies at the recent parliamentary elections. Michael Pröbsting is the International Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT). Both comrades have written several books as well as essays on China.
The exchange between the two partly took initially place on the Marxmail list (it can be read here), and later in the form of a direct dialogue. The PTS translated and republished this direct exchange on its website in the section “Ideas de Izquierda”. It can be read here: https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-caracter-de-China-y-sus-consecuencias-para-la-politica-revolucionaria.
We also republish this exchange in English as well as in Spanish language. (See below)
You can read several contributions of Esteban Mercatante on China in Spanish (https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Esteban-Mercatante) as well as in English (see e.g. https://www.leftvoice.org/china-and-imperialism-elements-of-the-debate/ and https://www.leftvoice.org/a-tour-of-views-on-chinas-relationship-to-imperialism/). His latest book is “El imperialismo en tiempos de desorden mundial.” (https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-imperialismo-en-tiempos-de-desorden-mundial)
Michael Pröbsting has published a book on “Anti-Imperialism in the Age of Great Power Rivalry” which can be read in English (https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/) as well as in several other languages, including Spanish (https://www.thecommunists.net/home/espa%C3%B1ol/libro-anti-imperialismo-en-la-era-de-la-rivalidad-de-las-grandes-potencias). Other pamphlets on this issue can be read here: https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
Debate sobre el capitalismo en China
El carácter de clase de China y su papel en la política global es uno de los temas cruciales en el período actual. Recientemente ha habido un intercambio sobre este tema entre Esteban Mercatante y Michael Pröbsting.
Esteban Mercatante es economista y miembro del Consejo de Redacción de “Ideas de Izquierda”. Esta es la publicación teórica del Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PTS) en Argentina, la fuerza dirigente dentro de la alianza trotskista FITu que obtuvo 1,5 millones de votos y 4 diputados en las recientes elecciones parlamentarias. Michael Pröbsting es el Secretario Internacional de la Corriente Comunista Revolucionaria Internacional (CCRI). Ambos camaradas han escrito varios libros y ensayos sobre China.
El intercambio entre ambos se dio en parte inicialmente en la lista de Marxmail (puede leerse aquí), y luego en forma de diálogo directo. El PTS tradujo y republicó este intercambio directo en su sitio web en la sección “Ideas de Izquierda”. Se puede leer aquí: https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-caracter-de-China-y-sus-consecuencias-para-la-politica-revolucionaria
También republicamos este intercambio en inglés y en español. (Ver abajo)
Puedes leer varias contribuciones de Esteban Mercatante sobre China en español (https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Esteban-Mercatante) así como en inglés (ver, por ejemplo https://www.leftvoice.org/china-and-imperialism-elements-of-the-debate/ y https://www.leftvoice.org/a-tour-of-views-on-chinas-relationship-to-imperialism/). Su último libro es “El imperialismo en tiempos de desorden mundial.” (https://www.laizquierdadiario.com/El-imperialismo-en-tiempos-de-desorden-mundial)
Michael Pröbsting ha publicado un libro sobre “Anti-Imperialismo en la Era de la Rivalidad de las Grandes Potencias” que se puede leer en inglés (https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/anti-imperialism-in-the-age-of-great-power-rivalry/) así como en varios otros idiomas, incluyendo español (https://www.thecommunists.net/home/espa%C3%B1ol/libro-anti-imperialismo-en-la-era-de-la-rivalidad-de-las-grandes-potencias). Otros folletos sobre este tema se pueden leer aquí: https://www.thecommunists.net/theory/china-russia-as-imperialist-powers/.
China’s Character and Consequences for Revolutionary Politics
Letter from Michael Pröbsting
Esteban,
In your last contribution on the list, you did write: “The second issue is if China is, or is about to become, the leading imperialist power. I believe that this cannot be accomplished without a great confrontation and defeat of US.” I fully agree and we did say so in our works on this issue.
But the point is that what is the class character of China today, i.e. before such a decisive confrontation? I mean if we agree that China has become capitalist some time ago (in contrast to let us say the USSR before 1991), how could it possibly challenge the U.S. domination without being already an imperialist power?
Would it not be an absurd analysis to believe that there exist established imperialist powers (like Germany, France, UK, Japan) which are not strong enough to challenge the U.S. but that those power which actually challenge the U.S. hegemony (and which are clearly capitalist), that these powers are not imperialist? That seems to me an illogical position from a Marx point of view.
So, I think we should state clearly that China has already become an imperialist power but that it is not the dominant power. In fact, the current historic period is characterized by the situation that there is not a single power which dominates the world order. The U.S. is still the strongest but no longer the absolute hegemon and it is declining.
Concerning the issues of consequences for revolutionary tactics. There seems to me a certain inner contradiction in your argument. First, you write: “On the question of a confrontation between China and US o UE imperialism, I do not think that my conceptualization should lead to side with China.” But then you say: “I wouldn’t say in advance that the right position to take is defeatism on both sides. My opinion is that it will depend on the nature of the conflagration.” So, it seems to me that indeed your analysis opens the road to siding with China.
But let us discuss this more concretely. Under which conditions could one possibly side with China? I mean the conflict between the U.S. and China is not an unknown territory. There could be a conflict around Taiwan when Beijing tries to conquer it and Washington rally to its “defense”. There could be conflict starting from a confrontation in the South China Sea when Beijing clashes with one of its neighbors (i.e. Vietnam, the Philippines) and, again, the U.S. side with the latter. There could be conflict with Japan. There could be a clash with India. And there could be a direct confrontation starting from an “incident” between the naval forces of both sides in the South China Sea or in the Pacific. Maybe I forgot one other scenario, but these are, in my opinion, the realistic possible scenario of confrontation.
So, the question is in which of these possible scenarios should, in your opinion, socialists take the side of China? In my opinion in none.
You might say why is this such an important issue? Well, because as a revolutionary organization we are obliged to give the vanguard an orientation, to prepare it for the coming confrontations and wars. Once, a war starts, it is much more difficult to prepare the vanguard. There will be panic – “this might result in World War III”; there will be the fog of war – both sides will present their version of events which led to war. Who is right? You can not find this out in such a situation of bombing, shooting and media frenzy.
No, comrade, if we- as Trotskyists – do not educate the vanguard already now about the character of the confrontation between the Great Powers, we will have a situation of utter confusion in the minds of the vanguard once the shooting starts.
Furthermore, it is crucial to give the vanguard an orientation already today when there are all the political, diplomatic, trade, etc. conflicts going on between the Great Powers.
In short, we must provide clarity in analysis and program and not an approach of “we will see”.
I leave it with this, and I would be glad to hear your response on my thoughts.
* * * * *
Letter from Esteban Mercatante
Michael,
the issues you raise are important. I think we can agree on the complexities involved in accounting for China, which make black and white definitions of little use. I think the wide divergences between authors and currents within the broad spectrum of Marxist authors is largely a result of this complexity. We in the FT have been studying and exchanging on the question for quite some time, as you may see in the articles we have been publishing in our international network of La Izquierda Diario, not only of my authorship.
To begin with, I would like to re-emphasize the importance of theorizing transitional forms. You pointed out the question of the leap from quantity to quality, but part of that process is the development of a whole series of transitions until that qualitative change takes place. The notion of imperialism under construction applied to China seeks to account for a transition, pointing to a direction (towards consolidating itself as imperialism) but without considering it inevitable that it will advance towards it.
You point out, „Would it not be an absurd analysis to believe that there exist established imperialist powers (like Germany, France, UK, Japan) which are not strong enough to challenge the U.S. but that those power which actually challenge the U.S. hegemony (and which are clearly capitalist), that these powers are not imperialist?“. In my articles I also point out the fact that, excluding the U.S., China already shows a higher level than the rest of the powers, taking as a whole a series of dimensions (if we were to take them separately, China would be ahead in some, and behind in others). However, and this does not seem minor to me, China’s superiority is accompanied by a situation in which the balance between the set of dimensions configures a less „coherent“ socioeconomic formation. What do I mean by this? I mean that today we still have many “Chinas” within China; a southeast where the most advanced of the world’s industry and technology is located, where the companies that compete head to head with US, German or Japanese firms to dominate some of the cutting-edge technologies are formed; while in the rest of the country the situation is much more unequal. This has very serious effects: to make a historical parallel, while Great Britain as the main imperialist power was confronted for world domination by other powers that were comfortably surpassing it in productivity, such as the USA and Germany, today the USA is challenged by a country whose aggregate productivity is one third that of the USA. Although today neither Germany, nor Japan, nor any other country has China’s capabilities to challenge the US, neither do they exhibit such a vulverability. Let us add the fact, which in one point is „symbolic“ but also of no lesser importance, that we are talking about a state that intends to dispute world domination while at the same time maintaining claims of sovereignty over Taiwan against the support of U.S. imperialism received by the pro-independence government of Taipei. You raise, with some reason, that any Chinese advance on Taiwan could be part of a conflict between powers. But the fact that for China this is a sine qua non condition for achieving national integrity is yet another sign of the contradictory nature of its status.
On the other hand, and this is not a minor issue, after World War II many of the imperialist powers on both warring sides reconstructed their status as powers as part of a system of alliances that led them to recognize a subordinate position with respect to the United States. Today China, which since the Nixon voyage maintained for decades a privileged relationship with the US, finds itself outside of that alliance system, and at odds with it, beyond China’s place in global governance institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank, where it cooperates with the interests of global capital.
I emphasize the category of imperialism in the making to point out that, as other scholars of China observe, China is at an early stage of its imperialist deployment. Let us agree that China so far did not show itself as an occupying force outside its territory (although within its territory it responds harshly to any claims of oppressed nationalities), and that the consolidation of its ascendancy over other nations, especially beyond its borders, is supported by economic means such as investments through the BRI, bilateral credits, etc. It has no network of military bases abroad, and most of its military force is devoted to border conflicts. Back, it is true that for many imperialist powers some of these things don’t happen either; but through NATO even the weaker EU military powers actively intervene in dependent and semi-colonial countries much more than China does. I believe that we are still observing the transformation of the Chinese state into an imperialist one -crossed by numerous internal contradictions that could abort this transformation, as I point out in the articles- and that it would not be correct to take it as a consummated process. In the debates of the early twentieth century, the characterization of the powers as imperialist left no room for doubt about the warlike and rapacious character that these states were openly deploying and whose capacities to deploy were not „under construction“ but fully deployed.
That said, I see this as a highly fluid and rapidly changing situation. Fifteen or twenty years ago dependent features prevailed in a China in which capitalist restoration was also just consolidating. Ten years ago, or even less, I was inclined to consider it a dependent formation with some imperialist features, and today we are discussing how much it has consolidated as imperialism or imperialism under construction.
Regarding the war scenarios, although the possible conflicts could be the ones you point out, I believe that the type of war in question requires considering more elements such as the type of alliances that are formed. I agree in warning against the chauvinist tendencies and the preparations of the ruling classes, both in China and the U.S., to present any clash as a „defense“, to present any clash as a „defense of the nation against external aggression“, in the first case, or a „defense of democracy“ in the second, as they showed weeks ago with the clownish conference for democracy in which Taipei was one of the great guests of the US. But, along with this warning, and aware that a conflagration is likely to occur in which the correct position is to pronounce the defeat of both sides, I believe that this ultimately cannot be determined a priori, but by a „concrete analysis of the concrete situation“.
taken from here